You are no doubt already aware that the Pentagon lowballs its casualty figures, counting only those troops who are
wounded or otherwise injured in narrowly-defined "hostile combat" situations. Now, our distinguished colleague Susan Madrak
of Suburban Guerrilla has written a major post rounding up allegations that the Pentagon is also cooking the death count.

Hired security contractors, or mercenaries, and recruits who are not citizens who enlisted to obtain a "green card,"
are not counted or mentioned. A large number of the green card recruits are from Mexico and Central America. There are no
organizations to look after their rights or help them once they're in Iraq. Most of them are buried in Iraq when killed.

A
videotape produced and distributed by the "Majles Shora Al-Mojahideen in Fallujah," one of the most important military wings
of the Iraqi resistance, showed a burial site discovered outside the Iraqi city of Samara with tens of bodies in US military
body bags. The dead were dressed in US uniforms. It is estimated that as many as 40% of the US troops serving in Iraq are
green card recruits.

And this from Indymedia, about a Reuters cameraman shot and killed by American troops who "mistook his camera for a rocket launcher":

According to Islamonline.net and other sources, Dana's family, when interviewed after the murder, had stated to investigators
that Dana was murdered because he was shooting video footage of mass graves of US soldiers --- i.e., soldiers killed who were
not counted in the official Pentagon casualty figures --- for a television documentary on the subject for Reuters.

Just
days before the murder, he told his brother that US military intelligence had been following him around continuously and that
he was certain that, sooner or later, he would be killed. According to another article in http://www.aztlan.net/, the mass graves in various locations in Iraq contained large numbers of Mexican nationals fighting on the US army front
lines, persons who had been promised US "green cards" and even US citizenship by unscrupulous US Army recruiters if they were
willing to risk almost certain combat death.